We are all suffering together

Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (I/C) for Civil Aviation, has said that his ministry is constantly in touch with travel agents and other stakeholders in dealing with the crisis they presently face. While the government has resumed evacuation flights for Indians stranded abroad, no news has been shared yet on the resumption of domestic flight operations.

Nisha Verma

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) is in active touch with all stakeholders of the tourism industry, including travel agents and airlines, claims Hardeep Singh Puri. “We are in daily contact with the airlines on specific issues and Pradeep Singh Kharola, Secretary, Civil Aviation, has been dealing with the travel industry and agents on an institutional basis. We are acutely conscious of the challenges they are facing and of the fact that they have cash flow problems. I can foresee that our ability to address these problems gets facilitated only when we resume activity. We need to look at it as an industry issue; travel agents, airlines and the hotel industry are suffering together. We all need to put our heads together and figure out how to address the problem, what the government can do and what kind of ecosystem we can devise. On behalf of all of them, we are in touch with different sections, including Airports Authority of India and operators. I am confident that going forward, we will find solutions,” he said at a recently-held press conference.

Commenting on the distress that the aviation sector has faced owing to COVID-19, he added, “Challenges that airlines are facing are from the pre-COVID period. We all know that the aviation sector has suffered a lot.”

Puri also announced at the conference that MoCA was bringing back 15,000 Indians stranded in more than 10 countries, over seven days in 64 flights. The evacuation, being carried out on Air India flights, began on May 7. However, he insisted that the repatriation flights are no indication of domestic flight operations beginning soon, which would only resume after the lockdown is lifted. The minister also said that they will navigate the way forward based on how the situation evolves. “We will have to open the aviation sector in a gradual and calibrated manner. We can only plan for flights between two green zones. It will be difficult to resume services between red zones,”
he concluded.